Show and Tell

‘It’s Too Big’: Meet Jonah Falcon, the Man With the World’s Largest Penis

Jonah Falcon is said to have the world’s largest penis. Now he’s singing about it. He chats with The Daily Beast about “It’s Too Big” and, well, his very large penis.

When your penis is so large that documentaries are made about it, that airport TSA mistakes your member for a weapon, that Jon Hamm gets advice from you on how to handle the attention, you have two options. You could try desperately to play down the fascination and keep your prodigious private...private. Or, you could let it all hang out.

Jonah Falcon, the 42-year-old actor with the 9-inch penis (13.5 inches hard), has chosen the latter route. Falcon has already spoken about his penis, unofficially the world’s largest, in a handful of documentaries on the male body. Now he’s singing about it.

“It’s Too Big” is a collaboration between Falcon and dance-club artist/comedian Adam Barta, a novelty song about Falcon’s wine-bottle-sized wonder. Picked up by outlets including Buzzfeed and The Huffington Post, the song, in which Falcon sings about how “it may just be / the biggest in history,” and its trippy, candy-colored video have quickly gone viral.

What’s it like for a man to sing—and rap—about how large his penis is? We called up Falcon to find out:

I’ve been watching how quickly the video has gone viral. Have you noticed?

Sort of. I don’t know about the hits. I always do Google News searches, so I’ve seen some.

Are you surprised by how quickly it’s taken off?

No, not surprised. The TSA thing was even more viral, but this is the first time I’ve had the chance to stretch my vocal ability. I’ve always been able to sing because I’ve done stage productions, but I’ve never actually done a pop single that was released on iTunes or YouTube.

So how did this come about? Did Adam reach out to you?

Yes, Adam reached out to me, and I was more than happy to because I knew Adam already. We hashed out the song in a Starbucks for like 30-45 minutes. Once we figured out the kind of beat it would have and the hook, the song basically wrote itself.

What’s the goal of this video? What were you hoping to happen?

Make a few bucks, actually. Personally, it was a way to show that I could sing, even though it was a comedy song like a—I forgot the term, not a gimmick song—a novelty song. I’m not sure Adam or his representatives knew I could sing. At first they just wanted me to do a rap, but I proved my vocal abilities and it quickly evolved into a duet, which we were singing together. There was still a rap in it, but it wasn’t the focal part of the song.

Have you rapped before?

No, not quite in that way. I’ve never done hip-hop rap, and I’ve never done disco, dance rap. I have done patter songs before. Modern songs.

Over the years you’ve participated in documentaries about your penis and you’ve been on The Daily Show speaking about it, too. At what point did you decide that this is something you were going to embrace?

I was invited by a friend to do the HBO documentary. It was going to make me a little bit of money and I was desperate for money at the time. Then someone told Howard Stern about me and things just exploded from there. I’ve basically just been riding the wave.

What is it like to have this be the thing about you that fascinates everyone? That the world is obsessed with your penis?

Well, I’m a natural show off to begin with. I’m an only child. I’m an actor. I’m a Leo. It’s something I enjoy doing. I enjoy making other people happy, and this seems to make people happy.

So when you say you’re a show off, you mean you literally don’t mind showing off your penis to people?

Not as much as I used to. When I was in my 20s, I used to walk around Chelsea and the West Village wearing tight jean shorts, and it would go halfway down my pant leg. Now, I tend to put a wallet in my left pocket, because I tend to wrap around the side of my leg, so you really can’t tell anything.

Is it hard to dress yourself and mask it?

It’s not difficult. I just have to make sure of certain things. I don’t like loose boxer shorts because I don’t like banging against myself like that. I prefer tight constriction, putting it off to the side. That way, if it’s downward it’s actually comfortable that way. I don’t want to put it up because then it would go way above my belt or the top of my jeans. So I just put it off to the left. If I’m showing off—if I decide to—I wear biker shorts. Like I did in the video.

When friends or people you meet first find out about this, what’s their typical reaction?

“Wow, can we see?”

Do you oblige?

If I’m comfortable and it’s a good situation, I just whip it out. Soft, I’m almost 9 inches, so it’s impressive that way. I don’t even have to get it hard.

I’m sure you’re asked many, many inane questions about it. What’s the one you’re most tired of hearing?

“Is it real?”

Do people actually think it isn’t?

I’m at the point at which it’s a little beyond what people expect it to max out at, really. When I’m fully, fully hard, I’m longer than my forearm and bigger than my wrist. I really have to get excited to get there.

Do you find that you have a little bit of celebrity from this?

A lot of celebrity from this, yeah. I always wondered if I didn’t have it if I’d been able to have celebrity. I think I might have for a different reason, whatever reason it is. The main battle I’m having right now—the thing is, I’m using it as sort of a gimmick, a hook. I’m working on other stuff, I can’t really talk about it right now. A major studio is talking to me about a starring role—I wouldn’t say a low-budget thing, but a medium-low budget which I’m writing a script for. I’m making sure there’s a full-frontal scene in it, but it will be sort of like the hook. People will come in for that and come away with something else.

Yeah, basically. I mean I even go to the entire Gypsy Rose Lee about how she laughs at herself before anybody laughs at her.

What does your family think about what you’re getting all this attention for?

I try not to discuss it with them.

Because it’s embarrassing to talk about with them, or because they don’t want to talk about it?

Basically, I don’t want to talk about it with them. It’s not a comfortable subject for me to talk about with family. I mean, they know.

On The Daily Show, you said you wouldn’t enter the porn industry because it would be “just the easy way out…it’s not going to help my legit acting career.”

Yeah. The thing is, I’d just be one of many. Everyone exaggerates there, for one. I can’t really have sex in front of other people, either. It’s not my thing.

Do you think this music video will help your acting career?

I think it’s a way to show people that I can sing and make them laugh. They may not take me seriously because of my song, but the only answer to that is to continue going on. Most people laugh about me doing a song about my penis, but I’m not going to do another one for a very long time. The thing is, I’m actually working on doing something that’s diametrically different. A different style, a different genre, a different topic.

So having all this notoriety for your penis—is this something that you’re glad happened to you? What’s your feeling about that being your claim to fame?

My feeling is that I have something that I’m exploiting. As long as I’m the one exploiting it before other people do, I’m fine with it.

Do you think that this has helped your career?

I think so. It’s a hypothetical question that I really can’t answer. It’s certainly gotten me attention. There’s a museum in Iceland that’s going to have an exhibit about me, so it’s certainly something unique. Like you said, I guess people just have to have a gimmick. But it doesn’t stop me from being in television. It doesn’t stop me from being able to write or appreciate other things.

You seem to have a sense of humor about it. I saw you offered advice to Jon Hamm about how to handle the fascination over his bulge?

Oh that was actually serious, though. My advice to him was serious. One thing, I’ve investigated a little further: if you’re going to wear tight pants like that, skin-tight pants, especially slacks—he’s asking for it. It sounds to me like the queen doth protest too much, from Hamlet. I think he wants that attention, or else he wouldn’t dress that way. I mean if I want to show off, I wear bike shorts. But I know how to be obscure if I want to, so that it looks like it’s just a wallet.

So now with this video blowing up, are you enjoying the response?

Definitely. There are a lot of people who say that it’s catchy. Some people say it’s Pet Shop Boys-like. I don’t see it, but I guess. One thing I enjoy about the song is that it’s very bubblegum and fluff and poppy and just, you know, easy to take down, like root beer. It’s very cloying. That’s what I wanted, something that was not very confrontational, something that was very smooth and easy. If the lyrics weren’t about my dick, you could easily hear Miley Cyrus or Justin Bieber singing it, if it wasn’t about penis. In this case it was. Maybe it’s a stealth parody of that sort of thing. All I know is I wouldn’t mind being on Vh1 20 years from now talking about a one-hit wonder that I had.